We all love to get into the Christmas season and set the right mood for love and merry making. This is also the right time to look for special gifts and send them to our loved ones just to let them know how much they mean to us. Just as we are reminded by the timeless hit of the Little Drummer Boy, no gift will ever be ideal for Christmas than the gift of a real Christmas classic. But unfortunately, it is a little bit of a task to locate and find such gifts and send them out during Christmas.

American Christmas Classics –  FREE SHIPPING until Christmas using Code CHR2015!

Despite the fact that it is not easy to find the perfect gift to send out during Christmas, there is not a total blockade to prevent you from thinking out of the box. It is still possible to come up with a nice sweet collection of American Christmas classics and wrap them into a gift box that will be much appreciated, especially by those folks from the Baby Boomer era. Fortunately, with a little searching, there are several places where you can find such gift collections. One such place is Christmas Classic Ltd. It produces exquisite Christmas music collections that will make perfect Christmas gifts at any time. To boot, American Christmas Classics is available at $29.95 . . . a 50% Discount from the original price of $59.95!

Included in the American Christmas Classics collection are 47 all-time favorite classic Christmas songs featuring music legends Bing Crosby, Kate Smith, Andy Williams, Gene Autry and other celebrated singers. But the collection is not only about music.

This cultural treasure includes a lavishly illustrated masterpiece book about the stories behind favorite American Christmas carols and songs featuring period fine art and illustrations from America’s great artists, such as Norman Rockwell, Henry Ossawa Tanner, and Grandma Moses, as well as images of nostalgic Victorian Christmas cards and notable magazines of yesteryear as The Saturday Evening Post, Scribner’s, and LIFE.

This Christmas collection has been described as a sumptuous and ideal gift package that will bring boundless joy this season. For customers nostalgic for their Christmas past, this is the perfect Christmas gift.

Act today for FREE SHIPPING using Code CHR2015

          AMERICAN CHRISTMAS CLASSICS

Rev. Charles Lewis Hutchins was born on this day in 1838. He was an Episcopal minister who graduated from the General Theological Seminary, New York City.  He is known for producing a number of books and hymnals for the Episcopalian Church, including his largest volume Carols Old and Carols New: For Use at Christmas and Other Seasons of the Christian Year (Boston: Parish Choir, 1916). The massive collection contained 751 carols, about 470 dedicated to Christmas, and it remains one of the largest ever printed in the English language. The carols were international in scope, mostly from Europe and the United States, and included both favorite and lesser known carols.

Carols Old and Carols New: For Use at Christmas and Other Seasons of the Christian Year had a limited printing of a thousand copies, but it contained unusual features for its day, such as a preface, a composer and music source index, a first-line index, and some information about the authorship of carols.

Rev. Hutchins died on August 17, 1920 in Concord, Massachusetts. He is buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, a famous last resting place for some of New England’s great 19th century authors and transcendental poets, as well as Katherine K. Davis, the composer of the popular carol The Little Drummer Boy.

Charles L. Hutchins

In 1988 I thought it would be a neat idea to share the riches of my Christmas music collection. So for Christmas I gift-wrapped four audio cassettes of the finest recordings from my collection and gave them to family and friends. Each gift collection was accompanied by an 8-page type-written directory with a Chinese red cover titled “A Gift of Sound.” Besides having a decorative, though primitive look, the directory of song titles was intended to be easier on the eyes than my barely legible long-hand. Just imagine writing the same information on cassette index cards four times twelve, or forty-eight total! The thought was enough to give me writer’s cramps. My quaint IBM Selectric II typewriter, however, saved me the trouble and as a result the directory included not only selection titles, but also brief liner notes that sometimes indicated the origin of each carol, holiday song, or instrumental piece.

Some of my friends included those of the Jewish faith married to Christian partners. They admitted that although they usually felt left out at Christmas, they were indeed appreciative of my eclectic Christmas music gift. What made the collection special for most was the quality of the music. Quite unlike what they were accustomed to hearing during the holidays, it encompassed Gregorian chant, once the Christmas music of its day, and such classical pieces as "Anima  Nostra,” Bach’s “Christmas Oratorio,” the German motet ""Hort zu lieben Leute," and the Spanish villancico, "Riu, Riu, Chiu” just to name a few. The collection was rounded out by lyrical English carols from the 16th and 17th centuries, and better known traditional fare, particularly carol hymns as "O Come, O Come Emmanuel” and “Adeste Fidelis,” or classic holiday songs as “White Christmas,” and “The Christmas Song.” In all, the four cassette collection totaled one hundred and twenty-four titles. Most came from England, France, Germany, and the United States. Entries from Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Italy, and Sweden were also part of the mix. By the end of the 1988 Christmas season I was being encouraged by several friends to do something about my great interest in Christmas music, suggesting that I should pursue my interest and take advantage of my college degree. This I did. And in 1989 I was on my way.

SPECIAL PERSON OF THE DAY – Émile Waldteufel (December 9, 1837 – February 12, 1915)

The composer of Les Patineurs, Op. 183, Émile Waldteufel died in Paris and is buried at Cimetière du Père Lachaise there. The composer was born in Strasbourg, France to a Jewish Alsatian family of musicians. In 1882 he composed the best-known waltz of his career – Les Patineurs (a.k.a. "The Skaters’ Waltz" in English). Inspired by the Cercle des Patineurs, or "’Rink of Skaters’ at the Bois de Boulogne in Paris, the waltz has since been played in various venues, from concert halls to movies such as The Hollywood Revue of 1929 and Chariots of Fire, to music games like Gamecube’s “’Dance Dance Revolution Mario Mix” and Arc System Works’ “Princess on Ice.”

Waldteufel’s famous waltz evokes wonderful imagery: a poised skater gracefully gliding along the ice and swirling about a ring of other skaters as part of the wintry atmosphere. The delightful music includes the sound of bells that adds a nice touch to the outdoor scene. The noted conductor Arturo Toscanini led the NBC Symphony Orchestra on January 28, 1945, at Carnegie Hall, New York, in a fine RCA Victor recording of Les Patineurs

 
Grave of Émile Waldteufel